Phonetics

:
A coursebook
RACHAEL-ANNE KNIGHT
City University London
UNIT 9 ALLOPHONIC VARIATIONS OF VOICE
9.1 Key learning areas
In this unit we will:
* discover that the same phoneme can occur in a number of different forms
* explore how allophonic variation is conditioned by the environment and
relates to coarticulation
* investigate why there is a need for two levels of transcription.
9.2 Introduction
So far we have looked at how individual sounds can be described and how we
can transcribe English words. In this unit, we will see that there are a number of
differences between sounds, which speakers of a language hardly ever notice.
These variations are usually related to the surrounding sounds, and it is
crucially important to know about them when studying phonetics.
9.3 Allophonic variation
Exercise 9.1
a) Make a transcription of the words ‘pin’ and ‘spin’.
b) Are the two /p/s the same?
Comment a) Your transcriptions should be /pɪn/ and /spɪn/.
b) It is very likely that you have commented that the two /p/s are the same, but
your opinion might change once you have completed Exercise 9.2.
Exercise 9.2 Take a single sheet of paper and hold it in front of your mouth. Now say the
word ‘pin’ loudly and watch what happens to your piece of paper around the
time you are producing the /p/. Now, keeping the paper where it is, say the word
‘spin’ loudly and watch the paper again.
Comment You probably found that your piece of paper moved after the /p/ in ‘pin’, but
not after the /p/ in spin, demonstrating that, in fact, the two /p/s are not
identical. This will be easy to observe for speakers of many accents of English,
such as SSBE. However, for some other accents of English, such as some
114
Northern accents, there may have been little difference between the two. In this
case, you might like to ask some friends with different accents to try the same
experiment, to see what happens.
9.4 Aspiration
The effect you observed when the paper moved in ‘pin’ is the result of some-
thing called aspiration. Aspiration is an audible puff of air that occurs after
another sound; it sounds rather like a short /h/. The /p/ in ‘spin’, on the other
hand, is unaspirated. This means that there is no /h/-like friction after the
release of the /p/. We will consider the detailed phonetics of aspiration and
unaspiration shortly.
Aspiration is present in English not only for /p/, but also for the other
voiceless plosives /t/ and / k/. There is a ‘rule’ for when aspiration occurs, which
is related to the position of /p t k/ in the syllable, and the stress of that syllable.
The rule is that aspiration occurs any time a voiceless plosive (i.e. /p t k/) occurs
at the very beginning of a stressed syllable. However, /p t k/ are always
unaspirated when they follow an /s/ in the onset of a stressed syllable – that is,
when they are in an /s/-cluster. Note that these rules are not conscious rules that
speakers deliberately follow, but unconscious rules, stored in their minds, which
they learnt as they acquired English as a child.
Exercise 9.3 Look at the following words and work out from the rules above which voiceless
plosives are aspirated and which are unaspirated when these words are pro-
duced in isolation, and therefore stressed.
tan king spend ski stand pen
Comment ‘king’ has an aspirated /k/, ‘pen’ has an aspirated /p/, and ‘tan’ has an aspirated
/t/. ‘stand’, ‘ski’ and ‘spend’ all contain the unaspirated version of those
consonants, as they come after /s/ in a cluster.
9.5 Diacritics
Now that we know there is a difference between the /p/ sounds in words like
‘pin’ and ‘spin’, we need a way to transcribe this difference. For most differ-
ences of this kind, we will add a small symbol to the symbol that we have
already learnt for the sound. These small additional symbols are known as
diacritics, and there is a special section for them on the full IPA chart. We will
use a large number of diacritics in this book, but they are summarised in
Appendix 3 for ease of reference (page 283). Aspiration is transcribed with a
superscript – (that is, a small, raised)
‘h’
, and unaspiration is transcribed with a
superscript ‘equals’ sign
‘=’
. This is a different level of transcription to that
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
115
which we have concentrated on so far, in that it shows more detail. For
example, it shows aspiration and unaspiration, rather than transcribing all
/p/s as the same. For this new type of transcription, we will need to use a
different type of brackets, for reasons that will be explained more fully below.
So, ‘pin’ is transcribed as [p
h
ɪn] and ‘spin’ is transcribed as [sp
=
ɪn]. You may
remember that we also learnt how to show more detail for /r/ sounds, using [ɹ]
and [ʋ], back in Unit 3.
9.6 Meaning differences
At this point, you may be feeling a bit confused. You have spent a long time (and
several units of this book so far) learning about the sounds in SSBE, and now it
turns out that there are more differences that you were not even aware of.
Actually this is perfectly normal, particularly if English is your ﬁrst language. As
native speakers of a particular language, we learn to ignore small difference
between sounds – for example, the difference between aspirated and unaspi-
rated plosives. The reason is that these small differences never make a difference
in meaning, as we shall see now.
Exercise 9.4 Remember that an aspirated /p/ has an audible puff of air before the following
vowel, which sounds a bit like an /h/. An unaspirated /p/ has no puff of air. Try
to swap these sounds around in words that you produce. For example, say ‘spin’
with an aspirated /p/, and ‘pin’ with an unaspirated /p/. This can be done quite
easily with a bit of practice, or you could ask your teacher to say it for you, or to
demonstrate it on a computer by splicing sounds together.
What do you notice about the meaning of the word? Does ‘spin’ still mean
‘spin’ even with an aspirated /p/? And what about ‘pin’? Does its meaning
change when the /p/is unaspirated?
Comment You should have found that, although the words might sound a bit odd, there is
no meaning difference between ‘spin’ or ‘pin’ when they are produced with an
aspirated /p/ or an unaspirated /p/. We will carry this idea further by thinking
about phonemes and allophones.
9.7 Phonemes, allophones and minimal pairs
Phonemes are the smallest units that can make a meaning difference in a
language, but they occur in slightly different forms depending on their envi-
ronment (the other sounds around them, and factors such as stress and their
position in the syllable). We can tell if two sounds are variants of the same
phoneme by replacing one for another in a word and seeing if they make a
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
116
meaning difference. If they do not, then we know they are different versions of
the same phoneme. These different versions are called allophones. The aspi-
rated and unaspirated sounds we have looked at in ‘pin’ and ‘spin’ are both
allophones of the phoneme /p/, but we could easily have used different examples
for the allophones of phonemes /t/ and /k/. In fact, every time we speak, we are
actually producing allophones. The native listener simply categorises these
according to which phoneme they belong to, and is very unlikely to even notice
that different allophones of a single phoneme exist. This seems quite a sur-
prising idea for many students, but hopefully it will become clearer and less odd
as we work through the next few units.
In terms of transcription, then, we can transcribe the same speech at
different levels of detail (and we will return to this idea in Unit 13). At one
level, we can give a broad transcription, by including only enough detail to
show which phonemes are present, and encase our transcription in slash
brackets / /. We can also make more detailed transcriptions, known as
narrow transcriptions, which we enclose in square brackets [ ]. One type of
narrow transcription, for example, shows which allophones of phonemes are
present, and would indicate, therefore, whether plosives are aspirated or
unaspirated. This type of transcription is known as allophonic transcrip-
tion. So, a broad transcription of ‘spin’ is /spɪn/, and an allophonic tran-
scription is [sp
=
ɪn]. Both transcriptions represent the same speech, but at
different levels of detail.
Swapping one sound for another to look for meaning differences is a really
useful tool and is referred to as a minimal pairs test. Minimal pairs are pairs of
words that only differ by one sound and mean different things. So, ‘pin’ and
‘tin’ are a minimal pair, as are ‘spin’ and ‘skin’. If a minimal pair can be found,
it demonstrates that the two different sounds ([p
h
] and [t
h
], or [p
=
] and [k
=
]) are
variants of different phonemes, because they make a meaning difference.
As we have already seen, there is no meaning difference when we swap
allophones of the same phoneme, like aspirated and unaspirated /p/, even if the
resulting words sound a bit odd. Thus, it is impossible to ﬁnd a minimal pair
involving aspirated and unaspirated /p/, because they are allophones of the
same phoneme and never make a meaning difference in English.
Exercise 9.5 What phonemes are illustrated by the following English minimal pairs? For
example, ‘pin’ and ‘tin’ illustrate phonemes /p/ and /t/.
a) ban and man
b) cat and rat
c) tin and tan
d) ram and ran
e) belated and berated
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
117
Comment a) /b/ and /m/
b) /k/ and /r/
c) /ɪ/ and /æ/
d) /m/ and/n/
e) /l/ and /r/
These pairs show that the two sounds which distinguish words in a minimal
pair can differ by one feature (such as manner in (a)), or many (such as voice,
place and manner in (b)). The test works for vowels (see (c)) as well as
consonants, in onsets (a), (b), (e) and codas (d), and in multisyllabic words (e).
As long as only one sound is changed, and that sound is in the same position in
each word, then the words form a minimal pair.
We can also ﬁnd minimal sets, such as ‘ran’, ‘ram’ and ‘rang’, which
illustrate three (or more) separate phonemes, /m n ˛/ in this case.
Exercise 9.6 Find minimal pairs to illustrate that the following pairs of sounds belong to
separate phonemes in English. For example, for [t]–[d], you could say ‘tangle’
and ‘dangle’.
[p]–[b]
[s]–[z]
[θ]–[ð]
[z]–[ʒ]
[ɡ]–[ʒ]
[˛]–[h]
Comment You probably found this task harder as the list progressed. That is because there
are more minimal pairs in the language for the pairs of sounds at the start of the
list than those at the end. So, while the ﬁrst two pairs are pretty easy, things get
harder as you go along. For [θ]–[ð] you might have said ‘thigh’ and ‘thy’, for
[z]–[ʒ], ‘baize’ and ‘beige’, and for [ɡ]–[ʒ] ‘mega’ and ‘measure’, which is
possibly the only minimal pair for these two sounds. You can see lists of
minimal pairs at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/wordscape/wordlist/. Importantly,
you will not have been able to ﬁnd any minimal pairs for /˛/ and /h/, a point that
we will explore further now.
Exercise 9.7 There are no minimal pairs in the English language for [˛] and [h].
a) Can you think why not?
Tip Remember what we learnt about the distribution of these sounds in Unit 8.
b) Do you think this means [˛] and [h] are allophones of the same phoneme?
Comment There are no minimal pairs for these sounds because they never occur in the
same environment. This is a situation known as complementary
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
118
distribution. In this example, [˛] only occurs in codas and [h] only occurs in
onsets. When two sounds are in complementary distribution, we often use this
as evidence that they are allophones of the same phoneme, because it means
that a minimal pair cannot be found (remember that minimal pairs differ by
one sound in the same position in the word). Using our earlier example of
aspiration, notice that aspirated and unaspirated sounds occur in different
environments (in stressed simple onsets and stressed /s/-clusters, respec-
tively). For [˛] and [h], however, most native speakers intuitively think they
are allophones of separate phonemes, even though they are in complemen-
tary distribution and can never make a meaning difference between English
words.
Exercise 9.8 Why do you think most speakers think of [˛] and [h] as different phonemes,
rather than as allophones of the same phoneme?
Tip Think about the VPM labels for each one.
Comment The reason that these sounds are classed as separate phonemes, even though they
are in complementary distribution, is that they are not phonetically similar. If we
think about aspirated and unaspirated /p/, they are not only in complementary
distribution, but are also phonetically similar, sharing the same voice, place and
manner of articulation. So, to be classed as allophones of the same phoneme,
sounds must be in complementary distribution and be phonetically similar.
Exercise 9.9 Imagine that a new language is discovered. This language might be on a newly
explored island in the middle of the ocean or on a planet outside our solar
system (in which case, it would likely be very different phonetically to most
human languages, but we can imagine that the principles discussed in this unit
still hold).
How will you work out which sounds are separate phonemes in this new
language and which are allophones of the same phoneme? Think about practical
considerations, such as the task you will ask your participants to perform, any
equipment you might need and any analysis you will carry out.
Comment The crucial test will be to ﬁnd minimal pairs in the language. In order to elicit
words to analyse for minimal pairs, you might ask informants to name concrete
objects (those that can be seen in the surroundings), as these are easier to
consistently identify than abstract concepts, like ‘truth’ and ‘justice’. Producing
words individually has the advantage of breaking up the speech stream some-
what, so that you can tell where word boundaries are, and what each word refers
to. You may also wish to record your participants, so you can listen several times
to their speech, and possibly analyse it acoustically.
Exercise 9.10 Imagine that, after eliciting some speech from your informants, you get the
following results.
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
119
[p
h
an] means ‘belligerent’
[p
=
an] means ‘birthmark’
[ban] means ‘to bloom’
The informants clearly use [p
h
] [p=] and [b], but are they used in the same way
as in English?
Comment [p
h
] and [p
=
] make a meaning difference in the language, so must be classed as
allophones of different phonemes. We know this because there is a minimal pair
involving these sounds in our data set. This is a good example of how different
languages can use the same sounds in different ways. English also uses the
allophones [p
h
] and [p
=
] as part of its sound system, but they are allophones of the
same phoneme /p/. The language illustrated above is, in fact, Thai, where [p
h
] and
[p
=
] are allophones of separate phonemes, both of which contrast (make a
meaning difference) with [b]. This is the most typical example of this contrast in
Thai, which you will ﬁnd in many textbooks, but the same situation also exists at
the alveolar POA, with a three-way contrast between [t
h
] [t
=
] and [d].
The details of the articulation and auditory effect of different allophones are
a matter of phonetics. However, once we start to think about how sounds
function in a language we are in the realm of phonology. In this book, we will
concentrate on the phonetic aspects of different allophones and where they
occur in English. While this will involve some aspects of phonology, we will
leave detailed description of phonological theory to other textbooks, some of
which are suggested in the Resources section (page 278).
9.8 Allophones of voicing
The remainder of this unit will be devoted to thinking about some of the
allophones of English. We will concentrate on the articulatory aspects of these
allophones, and the environment in which they typically occur in Standard
Southern British English.
The allophones we will investigate in this unit all have something to do with
voicing. As we will see, the voice label we have learnt for the phoneme may be
modiﬁed somewhat, depending on the environment, when we examine the
sound in more detail.
9.8.1 Recap of facts about voicing
Exercise 9.11 Fill in the gaps in the following paragraph for a reminder of the essential facts
about voicing.
Whether a sound is classiﬁed as voiced or voiceless depends on the action of
the _____ _____, situated in the larynx. For voiced sounds, the vocal folds are
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
120
_____ and are positioned close together so that they _____ in the airstream
from the _____. For voiceless sounds, the vocal folds are usually _____ and held
far apart, so that they do not vibrate. All vowels are _____, but _____ may be
described as either voiced or voiceless.
Comment Whether a sound is classiﬁed as voiced or voiceless depends on the action of the
vocal folds, situated in the larynx. For voiced sounds, the vocal folds are
adducted and are positioned close together so that they vibrate in the airstream
from the lungs. For voiceless sounds, the vocal folds are usually abducted and
held far apart, so that they do not vibrate. All vowels are voiced, but consonants
may be described as either voiced or voiceless.
So, in earlier units, we learnt that sounds can be categorised as either voiced
or voiceless. What we will see now, however, is that the situation is rather more
complicated. In particular, the label that we learnt for certain sounds may differ
or be modiﬁed due to the environment in which those sounds occur.
9.8.2 Obstruent devoicing
In some environments, sounds that we have classiﬁed as voiced can in fact be
produced without vocal fold vibration for some or all of their duration. We refer
to this process as devoicing. One class of sounds whose voicing can be affected
by the environment in this way is obstruents (see Unit 4.6 if you need a
reminder of this term). In transcription, a small circle directly above or below a
symbol indicates that a sound is devoiced. In this book, we will mainly use the
diacritic above the symbol, for ease of reading.
Exercise 9.12 Look at the following sets of data, which are allophonic transcriptions. In these
sets, we assume each word is spoken in isolation and thus surrounded by
silence.
What is the rule for obstruent devoicing demonstrated in each set?
Set 1 Set 2
[
˚
ɡəʊld̊ ] [wɛ̊bsaɪt]
[sɪlvə] [̊bæ
˚
gpaɪp]
[̊bɹɒnz̊] [hɒtd̊ ɒ
˚
ɡ]
Tip Firstly, ﬁnd all the obstruents you have previously classiﬁed as voiced, and
divide them into two sets, depending on whether or not they have been tran-
scribed with the diacritic indicating devoicing.
Comment In set 1, the devoiced obstruents are at the beginning and end of words; hence
the /v/ in ‘silver’ is not devoiced. In set 2, there are again some devoiced
obstruents at the start and ends of words, but others appear next to voiceless
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
121
obstruents. So, in set 2, obstruents are devoiced preceding or following silence
or voiceless consonants. It is important to remember here that the words in set 1
are transcribed as if they were in isolation. If these words were pronounced in a
phrase or sentence, things would be a bit different. For example, in the phrase,
‘gold and silver and bronze’, only the /g/ and /z/ would be devoiced, as they are
next to silence. The /d/ and/b/ would no longer be next to silence, as we do not
leave silent gaps between our words when we talk.
Exercise 9.13 Why do you think sounds classiﬁed as voiced might get devoiced next to silence
and voiceless sounds? Why are they not devoiced next to voiced sounds?
Comment Many of the allophones that we will investigate come about due to the inﬂuence
of surrounding sounds. We tend to think of sounds as individual discrete units,
but, of course, they run together with sounds next to them, and because these
sounds are produced with the same articulators, the sounds affect each other’s
production. Back in Unit 1, we said that speech is really like a movie, but that we
can think of it as a number of still snapshots. Each of our snapshots, however,
will be inﬂuenced by what happens before or after in the movie.
After silence or a voiceless sound, it can take some time for the vocal folds to
start vibrating, so a sound we think of as voiced may not have vocal fold vibration
the whole way through. Likewise, before a voiceless sound or silence, the vocal
folds prepare to stop vibrating, and may stop early, while the rest of the articu-
lators are still in position for the voiced sound. This process is called coarticu-
lation, in which the articulations for successive sounds overlap, and therefore
sounds change to accommodate features of the sounds that are around them.
We can draw a diagram to illustrate where vocal fold vibration takes place
within a word. As you can see in Figure 9.1, a ‘slot’ is assigned to each segment, so
the vertical lines indicate notional beginnings and ends of segments. The hori-
zontal line represents the action of the vocal folds across the utterance. Vibrating
vocal folds are indicated by the wiggly line, and lack of vibration by a straight line.
What we see here is that the vocal fold vibration does not begin immediately
when the other articulators are in position for /ɡ/. In addition, the vibrations of
the vocal folds stop before the other articulators have moved out of positionfor /d/.
This type of diagram is called a parametric diagram, as it shows parameters
such as vocal fold vibration, and can also be used to show the changing position
of the velum across the course of an utterance, which we will do in Unit 11.
[ əʊ l ]
------------------------------------------
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
-----------------------------
Figure 9.1 Parametric diagram of vocal fold vibration in ‘gold’
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
122
9.8.3 Direction of coarticulation
In the example in Figure 9.1, we see that sounds can be inﬂuenced by what
comes before or after them. So, the /ɡ/ in ‘gold’, when the word is produced in
isolation, is devoiced because of the silence that comes before it. The /d/ of
‘gold’, when the word is in isolation, is devoiced because of the silence that
comes after it. These two directions of inﬂuence have different names. If a sound
is affected by what comes before, this is called perseverative (or progressive)
coarticulation. If a sound is affected by what comes after it, this is called
anticipatory (or regressive) coarticulation. You will see that these terms can
also be used to describe the direction of assimilation in Unit 17.
9.8.4 Approximant devoicing
Obstruents are not the only sounds that are devoiced in English. Approximants
are also devoiced, but in different environments to obstruents.
Exercise 9.14 See if you can spot when approximants are devoiced by looking at the following
allophonic transcriptions.
[tɹ̊i] [lif] [ˈﬂaʊə] [pl
̊
ɑnt] [ˈkl
̊
əʊvə] [ɡ̊ ɹɑs] [wid̊ ] [ˈpɹ̊ɪvət] [ˈkʌntɹi]
Tip Divide the list into two, separating those words with and without approximant
devoicing.
Comment Approximants are devoiced when they occur in a cluster after a voiceless plosive in
the onset of a stressed syllable. Thus there is a devoiced /r/ in ‘tree’ and ‘privet’,
and a devoiced /l/ in ‘plant’ and ‘clover’. The /l/ in ﬂower is not devoiced because it
follows a fricative. The /r/ in grass is not devoiced because it follows a voiced
plosive (even though this plosive is itself devoiced, the fact that the phoneme is
classiﬁed as voiced means it does not trigger devoicing in the /r/). The /w/ in ‘weed’
is not devoiced because it does not followa voiceless plosive in a cluster. Finally, the
/r/ in ‘country’ is not devoiced because /tr/ is not the onset of a stressed syllable.
Again, coarticulation explains why there are different allophones of
approximants. After voiceless plosives, the voicelessness carries over into the
next sound, as can be seen in Figure 9.2; so a voiceless version of an
[ ˡp i n ]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
----------------
Figure 9.2 Parametric diagram of vocal fold action in ‘preen’
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
123
approximant is heard, even though approximants are voiced in most other
environments. Figure 9.2 shows how devoicing affects the /r/ in the word
‘preen’.
9.8.5 Aspiration and unaspiration
We have already seen earlier in the unit that some sounds are aspirated and
some are unaspirated. Now we will recap these phenomena. For Exercise 9.15,
you need to remember that the symbol for aspiration is [
h
], while that for
unaspiration is [
=
].
Exercise 9.15 Look at the following words. Try to work out in which environments sounds are
aspirated and in which they are unaspirated. We have covered most of this
brieﬂy already, but the rule is slightly more complicated than that explained
above.
[kəmˈpʰæʃən] [pəˈtʰeɪtəʊ] [əˈst
=
ɒnɪʃ] [spɛkjuˈleɪʃən] [ˈstɹɒ˛gɪst]
[ˈsk
=
ul] [ˈskɹudʒ]
Tip Are there some sounds that are not marked with either diacritic?
Comment First of all, you should notice that aspiration and unaspiration only apply to
the voiceless plosives /p t k/. This is true for English, but is not the case in all
languages, as fricatives and affricates can be aspirated too. Secondly, you will
have seen that stress and syllable position are crucial, as the aspirated and
unaspirated allophones only occur in stressed onsets, as we have already
said. You will also have seen that aspirated consonants occur when they are
alone in the onset of a stressed syllable, while the same sounds are unaspi-
rated in /s/ clusters. If an approximant follows in an /s/ cluster, such as in
‘strongest’, neither diacritic is used. Finally, you will note that when /p t k/
are in the onset of an unstressed syllable, neither diacritic is used. Thus, we
can think of there being three levels of aspiration in English (aspirated,
unaspirated, and a third level, called weak aspiration, which we will revisit
below).
9.8.5.1 The phonetics of aspiration
Exercise 9.16 Look at Figure 9.3, which shows the vocal fold activity in the word ‘Pam’. What
do you notice about the vocal fold activity in the vowel?
Comment The vocal folds do not vibrate all the way through the vowel, even though we
think of vowels as ‘voiced’ sounds. Rather than starting as soon as the articu-
lators have released the bilabial closure, there is a delay in vocal fold vibration,
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
124
meaning that part of the vowel is voiceless. The time between the release of the
plosive and the start of the vibration of the vocal folds is called voice onset time
(VOT), which is measured in milliseconds. A delay in voicing is referred to as a
positive voice onset time. We hear the delay in voicing as [h]-like friction,
because air is still ﬂowing through the vocal tract, even though there is no
voicing; we call this friction aspiration.
It can be quite confusing to realise that the variation in voicing is actually
associated with the following vowel, even though we talk about the consonant
being aspirated and apply the diacritic to the consonant in transcription. This
situation is really due to tradition, and is a consequence of us thinking about
speech as a string of individual sounds, rather than as a more continuous
stream. While we will follow the convention of talking about aspiration in
relation to consonants, it is worth remembering that, phonetically, the effects of
aspiration are present in the following vowel, as we can see in the parametric
diagram (for example, Figure 9.3).
Exercise 9.17 If you compare the diagrams for aspiration in Figure 9.3 and devoicing of an
approximant in Figure 9.2, you will note that they look very similar, in that both
have a delay to the start of voicing. Why do you think we use different terms,
and different diacritics, for these two phenomena?
Comment While the action of the vocal folds is delayed in both, the action and position
of the other articulators (i.e. those above the larynx) is different. So, for a
devoiced approximant, the articulators are in position for that approximant
and a voiceless version can be heard. For example, for a devoiced /l/, the tongue
is in the position for [l], but the vocal folds do not vibrate throughout. For
aspirated plosives, in comparison, the following sound is a vowel, so the
articulators are in position for that vowel during the voiceless period after the
release of the plosive. Voiceless vowels sound like [h]. (You can test this yourself
by whispering a fewvowels and listening to them.) So, although the action of the
vocal folds is similar in each case, the positions of the articulators above the
larynx are different, as is the auditory effect. For this reason, we use two
different descriptive terms (aspiration and devoicing) and two different
diacritics.
[ p
h
æ m ]
- -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
-------------------
Figure 9.3 Parametric diagram of vocal fold vibration in ‘Pam’
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
125
9.8.5.2 Phonetics of unaspiration
For the unaspirated /p/ in Figure 9.4, you will notice that vocal fold vibration
begins immediately at the onset of the vowel, as soon as the bilabial closure for
/p/ is released. There is no interval between the release of the plosive and the
start of voicing, and we say there is zero VOT. Therefore, there is no interval
where we can hear voiceless friction.
9.8.5.3 Phonetics of weak aspiration
As we noted above, however, we can also distinguish a third level of aspiration
in English.
As you can see from the voicing diagram for ‘teepee’ (Figure 9.5), there is
some delay in voicing for the vowel after the /p/, but that /p/ is not transcribed as
aspirated. Again, this is largely a matter of convention. Voiceless plosives in
unstressed onsets are followed by a shorter voice onset time than those in
stressed onsets. While there is in fact a continuum of VOTs, we tend to divide
this into three distinct categories for allophonic transcription, and only tran-
scribe the plosives in stressed syllables as aspirated. So, in SSBE, we refer to three
levels of aspiration for voiceless plosives: aspirated, unaspirated and weakly
aspirated, as for /p/ in the example of ‘teepee’ in Figure 9.5. These weakly
aspirated plosives occur as singleton onsets in unstressed syllables, and weak
aspiration is not symbolised with any additional diacritic. Weak aspiration is
also frequently not shown in parametric diagrams, and we will not show it in the
remainder of the diagrams in this book.
[ s p
=
æ m ]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
- - -----------------------
Figure 9.4 Parametric diagram of vocal fold action in ‘spam’
[ ˡt
h
i p i ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
vvvvvvvvv
-------------------------------------
vvvvvvvvvvvvvv
--------------------------
Figure 9.5 Parametric diagram of vocal fold vibration in ‘teepee’
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
126
9.8.6 Voicing of /h/
A ﬁnal allophonic variation concerning voicing relates to sounds that are voice-
less in most environments, but occur as voiced variants in certain situations. This
is actually rather rare in English, and primarily affects /h/.
Exercise 9.18 a) Try producing the following words and listening to the /h/ sound. Do you
hear any voicing for the /h/ in any of these words? In particular, compare
the words on the left with those on the right,
hind behind
head ahead
b) Why do you think voicing of /h/ occurs where it does?
Comment a) /h/ can be voiced when it occurs between two vowels, in words like ‘behind’
and ‘ahead’.
b) Here the voicing spreads from the surrounding vowels, which is another
instance of coarticulation.
The symbol for a voiced glottal fricative is [ɦ], as can be seen on the IPA
chart, and this symbol can be used to represent a voiced /h/ in an allophonic
transcription. If you listen closely to the sound of the [ɦ], you might hear that it
sounds breathy, with lots of air escaping each time the vocal folds part, rather
than the smoother, less breathy voicing we hear for other ‘voiced’ sounds.
Exercise 9.19 Why do you think [ɦ] has a breathy quality?
Tip Think about its place of articulation.
Comment [ɦ] is breathy because not only do the vocal folds have to vibrate to produce
voicing, they must also be in the correct position to produce friction, as the place
of articulation is glottal.
Figure 9.6 illustrates the action of the vocal folds for /h/ in ‘head’ and ‘ahead’.
9.9 Allophones and phonemes again
Finally, you may have wondered why we learnt labels and symbols for English
sounds in the early units of the book, which have now changed. For example,
why did we learn that /z/ is voiced, when in fact it can be devoiced, as we have
seen here? The labels and symbols that we have learnt already only reﬂect quite
general characteristics of the sounds in question. So, /z/ is frequently voiced,
frequently alveolar, and frequently fricative. If it has all three of these charac-
teristics, then it is represented as [z] in a narrow transcription. Under some
circumstances, aspects of its articulation can change. The labels and symbols in
the early units allowed us to think about sounds in general terms, but now we
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
127
can add much greater detail, which can be shown in our allophonic
transcription.
9.10 Summary
In this unit, we have looked at how the VPM labels we learnt for consonants may
be modiﬁed according to a sound’s environment, and we have considered
variations in voicing, such as aspiration and unaspiration, devoicing of obstruents
and approximants, and voicing of /h/. We have seen how such variations can be
noted in an allophonic transcription and shown on a parametric diagram. We
have also considered the difference between phonemes and allophones, and
introduced the idea of coarticulation and allophonic transcription.
9.11 Looking forward
In the next unit, we will investigate allophonic variations of place of articulation.
9.12 Review questions
Have a look at these questions to see if you have understood the main points
to learn from this unit.

In any given language, how can we tell whether two sounds are
allophones of the same phoneme or allophones of different phonemes?

What are the three levels of aspiration we distinguished for SSBE, and
how do they differ phonetically?
Figure 9.6 Parametric diagrams of vocal fold vibration in ‘head’ (upper) and ‘ahead’ (lower)
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
128

In what environments are obstruents and approximants devoiced in
English?
9.13 Review exercises
1 Look at the following words and think about the consonants that are
emboldened. Remembering the rules for aspiration above, divide the words
into three groups, depending on whether the emboldened consonant is aspi-
rated, weakly aspirated or unaspirated, when each word is said in isolation.
appendix kidney stomach intestines uterus pancreas
2 Now divide the following words into three sets, depending on whether they
contain a devoiced approximant, a devoiced obstruent, or neither. Assume
all words are spoken in isolation.
bladder brain prostate vein heart lung
3 Now give full allophonic transcriptions for all of the words in questions (1)
and (2), including the diacritics we have started to use for aspiration,
unaspiration and devoicing.
UNIT 9 Allophonic variations of voice
129
UNIT 10 ALLOPHONIC VARIATIONS OF PLACE
10.1 Key learning areas
In this unit we will:
* ﬁnd out how allophones of a phoneme can vary in terms of place of articulation
* see how these allophones can be divided into primary and secondary types
* explore further how most allophonic variation is the result of coarticulation.
10.2 Introduction
In the last unit we saw that when we speak, we produce allophones. Phonemes
are made up of a number of different allophones, and the allophones are
produced in predictable ways according to the environment in which they
occur. In the last unit, we also saw that there are voicing variations, such as
aspiration and devoicing, which often occur due to coarticulation. In this unit,
we will see that within a phoneme there may also be variations in place of
articulation.
10.3 Variations in POA
10.3.1 Dental realisations
Exercise 10.1 Let us think about the phoneme /t/.
a) What place label have you learnt for this sound?
b) Now think about /t/ in the following words and try to decide if its
POA is the same in each one.
eighth track leant
Comment You will probably have remembered that we normally label /t/ as alveolar.
And in the word ‘leant’, its POA is indeed alveolar (unless you have replaced
it with a glottal stop [ʔ]). However, in ‘eighth’, you will probably have found
that the tongue touches the upper teeth, so the POA is dental; whereas in
‘track’, the tongue is further back in the mouth, closer to the postalveolar region
130
(unless you use a labiodental [ʋ] in ‘track’, in which case /t/ is likely to be
alveolar).
The /t/ in ‘eighth’ is dental due to the following dental fricative /θ/. This is
due to coarticulation, as the features of one sound inﬂuence an adjacent sound.
We use a diacritic to symbolise this allophone, in the same way that we use
diacritics to transcribe aspiration and devoicing. The diacritic indicating that a
sound’s POA is dental is [ ̪] underneath the symbol for that sound. You will
notice that the direction of coarticulation is anticipatory because the allophone
comes before the trigger sound.
Exercise 10.2 We have seen that /t/ is realised as [t̪] in ‘eighth’. However, we know from
looking at other allophones in the previous unit that the same processes of
coarticulation often apply to classes of sounds – that is, sounds with the same
voicing, manner or place. For example, devoicing occurs in the same environ-
ment for all voiced obstruents in English.
a) What other sounds do you think might be realised as dental before dental
fricatives?
b) Produce the following words, paying particular attention to the sound
before the dental fricative. Which of them are produced with a dental
POA?
wealth menthol everything rose-thorn breakthrough
Comment (a) and (b) The /k/ of ‘breakthrough’ and the vowel /i/ in ‘everything’
are unaffected by the following dental. The /l/ of ‘wealth’ and the /n/ of
‘menthol’ are both produced as dentals, so at ﬁrst it may appear that the
process is open to all alveolar sounds. However, the /s/ of ‘rose-thorn’ is
unaffected. We can therefore summarise the rule by saying that alveolar
stops (both plosives and nasals) and /l/ are realised as dental before a dental
fricative. You will have noticed that we are learning about lots of different
allophones and you may be ﬁnding them difﬁcult to remember. Recall that
you have a list of these allophones in Appendix 3, for ease of reference
(page 283).
10.3.2 Retraction
We have just seen that sounds we have initially classiﬁed as alveolar can in
fact be realised as dentals in a particular environment. In Exercise 10.1, we
also saw that the POA for /t/ in ‘track’ was further back in the mouth than
we might expect for a sound we classify as ‘alveolar’. When a sound is
produced with a POA that is further back in the mouth than most other
allophones of that phoneme, we call this process retraction. We symbolise
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
131
retraction using the diacritic [ ̱ ] underneath another symbol in an allophonic
transcription.
Exercise 10.3 We have seen that /t/ is retracted before /r/, but, again, we need to see if our rule
should be any broader. In particular, we need to see if it is only /r/ which triggers
retraction of alveolars.
Produce the following words, concentrating particularly on the alveolar
stops and /l/. Before which sounds are they retracted?
pinch draw heads welsh width
Comment You should ﬁnd that /n/ is retracted before /ʃ/ (or /tʃ/, depending on
your pronunciation) in ‘pinch’. /d/ is retracted before /r/ in ‘draw’
(unless you use [ʋ] in this word), and /l/ is retracted before /ʃ/ in ‘welsh’.
The alveolar /z/ of ‘heads’ does not affect the /d/, and we know that the
/θ/ in ‘width’ will actually cause the /t/ to be realised as a dental. Therefore,
we can summarise by saying that alveolar stops and /l/ are retracted before
postalveolar sounds (such as /ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ/ and [ɹ]). Again, this process is antici-
patory. The alveolar fricatives sometimes behave in a similar way, but, for
various reasons, we will leave these until Unit 17, where we deal with place
assimilation.
Exercise 10.4 Alveolars are not the only consonants that can be retracted. Sounds that we
classify as velar phonemes can also be retracted, but in different environments
to the retraction of alveolars. We use the same symbol as for retraction of
alveolars, but this time the symbol means that the POA is approaching the
uvular region.
Think about and produce the following words, concentrating on the
emboldened velar phonemes.
queen geese ghoul Gwent caught crab get
a) In which words are the velars retracted? Think about whether your tongue
touches the velum or further back in the mouth.
b) How might we summarise the environment for retraction of velars?
Comment a) Hopefully, you have found that /k/ and /g/ are retracted in ‘queen’, ‘ghoul’,
‘Gwent’ and ‘caught’.
b) If we look closely at these words, we see that the environment for retraction
is before back vowels (/u/ and /ɔ/ in these examples) and /w/. Of course,
this makes sense when we think about coarticulation. An upcoming back
tongue position affects the POA of a previous ‘velar’. We know that /w/ is
produced in almost the same way as /u/, which explains why /w/ has the
same effect as the back vowels. Again, this is an anticipatory process, as the
velar is affected by the following sound.
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
132
10.3.3 Advancement
Conversely, velar sounds can also be produced at a POA further forward in the
mouth than the phoneme’s place label would suggest, which is known as
advancement. We use the diacritic [˖] underneath another symbol to signify
that that sound is advanced.
Exercise 10.5 a) In what environments do you think velars might be advanced?
Tip Keep in mind the rule for retraction of velars.
b) Produce the following words, concentrating on the velars to see if you
are correct.
cute cake girl cube geese
Comment a) You may have worked out, by comparison with the environment for
retraction, that velars will be advanced before front vowels, and thus
advancement is an anticipatory process.
b) Advancement of velars happens in ‘cake’ (where the ﬁrst element of the
diphthong /eɪ/ is a front vowel) and ‘geese’ (where the vowel /i/ is a
front vowel). As /j/ is so similar in articulation to the front vowel /i/, we
ﬁnd that velars are also advanced in front of /j/, as in ‘cute’ and ‘cube’.
When velar sounds are advanced, the place of articulation is actually near
to the palatal region.
We saw previously that velars are retracted before back vowels, and
advanced before front vowels. But what about central vowels? As you will notice
if you think carefully about /g/ in ‘girl’, velars have a truly velar POA before
central vowels.
10.3.4 A note about advancement and dental realisations
As just explained, for articulations further back in the mouth than VPM labels
suggest, we use the same term, retraction, and diacritic [ ̱ ] for both velars and
alveolars. We do this, even though the resulting POA is different: close to uvular
for velars, and postalveolar for alveolars. However, for articulations further
forward in the mouth, we use two different terms and diacritics: advancement
[ ̟ ] for velars and dental [ ̪ ] for alveolars. In the latter case, it would not be
strictly incorrect to use the term ‘advancement’ instead of ‘dental’, but the term
‘dental’ is more speciﬁc and we will continue to use it in this book.
Exercise 10.6 You now know the rules for advancement, retraction and dental realisations.
Have a look at the following words, and produce them while concentrating
on the velar and alveolar consonants emboldened. Work out for each word
whether you need to add a diacritic for dental realisations, retraction or
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
133
advancement in allophonic transcription, or if the consonant in question is in
fact produced at the place of articulation that we learnt in Unit 3.
course craze health keen garbage cue cage trams bells
Tip Remember to bear in mind the environments for each allophone that we have
investigated above.
Comment ‘course’ has a retracted /k/ as it occurs before the back vowel /ɔ/. In ‘craze’, there
are no place variations, as the /k/ is not affected by postalveolar sounds such
as /r/. ‘health’ has a dental /l/ due to the following dental fricative. ‘keen’ has an
advanced /k/, as the following sound is the front vowel /i/. ‘garbage’ has a
retracted /g/ due to the following back vowel /ɑ/. ‘cue’ has an advanced /k/, as
does ‘cage’, due to the following /j/ and /eɪ/, respectively. ‘trams’ has a retracted
/t/ due to the following postalveolar /r/. The /l/ in ‘bells’ is alveolar, as stated in
its VPM label.
Note that for speakers who use a labiodental realisation of /r/ in all positions,
this sound will not trigger retraction of preceding alveolars in words like
‘trams’. However, many speakers with labiodental /r/ everywhere else (myself
included), actually use a postalveolar realisation of /r/ when following /t/ or /d/,
and retract the alveolars accordingly.
10.3.5 Labiodental realisations
There is another type of place variation that we need to look at. When sounds
classiﬁed as bilabial /p b m/ come immediately before the labiodental fricatives
/fv/, their place of articulation may in fact be labiodental.
Exercise 10.7 Think about the /m/ in ‘triumph’ and work out if you can see and feel that the
POA of the /m/ is indeed labiodental. Try the same exercise with the bilabials in
‘obvious’ and ‘typeface’.
Comment For some speakers, the /m/ in ‘triumph’, /b/ in ‘obvious’ and /p/ in ‘typeface’
are all labiodental, due to the presence of the upcoming labiodental sound.
Again, this realisation is due to anticipatory coarticulation, where the articu-
lators anticipate the following sound.
The diacritic for these labiodental realisations is the same as that for dental
realisations, [ ̪ ], which can be somewhat confusing. It is important to
remember, however, that the diacritic means labiodental when it occurs under
an otherwise bilabial symbol, and dental when it occurs under an otherwise
alveolar symbol. In addition, the IPA provides a unique symbol for a voiced
labiodental nasal, which is [ɱ], as can be seen on the IPA chart in Appendix 1
(page 281). Thus, [ɱ] and [m̪ ] symbolise the same sound.
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
134
10.4 Secondary articulations and variations of place
In all the examples we have looked at above, the place of articulation of a sound
is different to that stated in the VPM label that we give by default to the
phoneme. So, those phonemes that we would classify as alveolar can in fact be
realised as postalveolar or dental, according to their environment. Similarly,
velars can be realised with places of articulation near to the uvular or palatal
regions, and bilabials can be labiodental. The labels that we learnt in Unit 3
relate only broadly to the phonetic detail that we now know about.
As you know, the term ‘place of articulation’ refers to the greatest con-
striction in the vocal tract, and this can also be referred to as the primary
articulation. For the allophonic variations we have just considered, the primary
articulation is different to most other allophones of the phoneme in question,
and we can refer to these as primary variations of place.
There is another type of variation of place that does not relate to the location
of the primary articulation, but in which an extra, or secondary, constriction is
added in the vocal tract. This secondary articulation is always of a lesser degree
of stricture than the primary articulation. So, for example, the primary articu-
lation may be a plosive, and the secondary articulation an approximant. We will
refer to these types of variation as secondary variations of place, and will look
at several types.
10.4.1 Labialisation
Labialisation is the technical term for lip-rounding. Any consonant can be
labialised before rounded vowels or before /w/. We use the diacritic [ʷ] to the
right of a symbol to symbolise labialisation, as shown in the ‘Diacritics’ section
of the full IPA chart in Appendix 1 (page 281).
Exercise 10.8 Let us compare ‘teak’ and ‘tweak’, by producing them and thinking about the
initial alveolar in each case.
a) Firstly, see if you can reassure yourself that the primary place of articulation
for /t/ is alveolar in both words.
b) Now try to work out if you can see or feel lip-rounding during the /t/ in
either of the words. It may help to look in a mirror, or to ask someone else
to say the words for you.
c) Now do the same exercise for ‘spoon’ and ‘span’, concentrating on the /p/.
Comment a) You should ﬁnd that the primary articulation for /t/ is alveolar in both words.
b) However, if you look in a mirror you should see that there is lip-rounding
during the /t/ in ‘tweak’, due to the inﬂuence of the following /w/, but not
during ‘teak’.
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
135
c) In both ‘spoon’ and ‘span’, /p/ is bilabial, but you will likely see lip-
rounding during the /p/ of ‘spoon’, due to the inﬂuence of the following
rounded vowel /u/.
In fact, labialisation applies to any consonant when it occurs before a
rounded vowel or /w/, and, as we have said, we use the diacritic [ʷ] to indicate
labialisation in allophonic transcription. Because consonants are affected by the
following sound, this is an anticipatory process. Labialisation does not affect the
primary articulation of the sound, but adds another constriction. This con-
striction is a secondary articulation, because it is less extreme than the other,
primary, articulation. For example, the primary articulation for /t/ in ‘tweak’ is
at the alveolar ridge, and, as it is a plosive, this is a stronger constriction (that is,
the articulators are closer together) than the lip-rounding, in which there is wide
approximation between the articulators.
We now know that sounds are labialised before rounded vowels or /w/. In
fact, as we know, all the rounded vowels in English are also back vowels.
Therefore, labialisation occurs in the same environment in which velars are
retracted – that is, before back vowels and /w/.
Exercise 10.9 Think about the word ‘course’ from Exercise 10.6 (page 133) and try to answer
the following.
a) Do we expect the velar to be retracted?
b) Do we expect there to be lip-rounding during the velar?
c) Do we know of any other variations of /k/ that will apply in this word when
it is spoken in isolation?
d) Can more than one allophonic variation apply to the same phoneme at the
same time?
Comment (a) and (b) We know that /k/ will be retracted before the back vowel /ɔ/. We
also know that /k/ will be labialised, because /ɔ/ is rounded. In
fact, the /k/ is both retracted and labialised in this word.
c) You may also have noticed that the /k/ will be aspirated, as it is a
voiceless plosive at the start of a stressed syllable.
d) Thus, allophones of a phoneme can actually differ from each other
in several different ways, and an allophonic transcription notes all
these variations. So, in ‘course’, /k/ is realised as an aspirated
voiceless retracted velar plosive with lip-rounding, and it could be
transcribed allophonically as [ḵʷʰ]. Remember that an allophone is
the actual sound that we produce, and we include as much detail
about it as possible in our allophonic transcriptions.
Of course, not all allophonic variations can combine, because some articu-
lations are mutually exclusive. An allophone of /t/ cannot be both retracted and
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
136
dental, for example, or both aspirated and unaspirated, as these have mutually
incompatible articulations (and they occur in mutually exclusive environ-
ments). As a rule of thumb, a single realisation might have one difference of
voice, one of primary articulation, one of secondary articulation, and one of
manner from most other allophones of that phoneme.
10.4.2 Palatalisation
We have seen that labialisation does not affect the primary POA of a sound, but
instead adds a secondary articulation at the lips. Palatalisation is similar to
labialisation in this regard, but a secondary articulation is added in the palatal
region of the vocal tract. We use the diacritic [ʲ] to the right of another symbol
to symbolise palatalisation.
Exercise 10.10 Think about the words ‘noon’ and ‘news’ and transcribe them broadly. Be very
careful to think about whether you produce a /j/ after the /n/ in ‘news’. Most
speakers of SSBE will, but some American speakers, those with some British
accents, and younger British English speakers may never produce /j/ in this and
similar words. This exercise will only work for speakers who do produce a /j/ in
‘news’, so you may wish to get a friend to say them if this exercise does not work
for you.
a) Concentrate on the /n/ in each of these words. In particular, think about
howyour tongue feels, and which parts of the tongue are high in the mouth.
b) Do you notice a difference between /n/ in the two words?
Comment (a) and (b) If you do produce a /j/ in ‘news’, you will have felt that the front of
the tongue comes close to the palatal region of the mouth during /n/, whereas
this did not happen in ‘noon’. Again, this is an effect of anticipatory coarticu-
lation as the tongue prepares to produce /j/ during the /n/. In fact, any non-velar
sound is palatalised before /j/.
Exercise 10.11 Think about the statement above, ‘any non-velar sound is palatalised before /j/’,
and about the primary POA allophones we have already discussed in this unit.
a) Why are only non-velar sounds palatalised before /j/?
b) What happens to velar sounds in this environment (before /j/)?
Comment (a) and (b) As we have seen in ‘news’, /n/ is alveolar, as in most other
environments, but gains a secondary articulation in the palatal region. However,
velar sounds are advanced before the palatal approximant /j/, as we saw above.
In a word like ‘queue’, therefore, the presence of the palatal actually affects the
primary POA of the velar, which we say has been advanced to nearer the palatal
place of articulation.
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
137
10.4.3 Velarisation
Exercise 10.12 Given your knowledge of palatalisation and labialisation, what do you think
velarisation might mean?
Comment Velarisation means a secondary articulation in the velar region of the vocal tract.
Like palatalisation and labialisation, velarisation is a secondary POA variant,
so will not inﬂuence the primary POAof any sound it affects. Velarisation applies
primarily to /l/ in English, but only occurs in certain environments.
Exercise 10.13 Think about and produce the words ‘little’ and ‘lulled’. In each word, compare
the /l/ in the onset with the /l/ in the coda, and concentrate on the shape of your
tongue, particularly towards the back.
What do you notice?
Comment This can be quite difﬁcult to feel, but hopefully you noticed that the back of your
tongue comes close to the velar region of the mouth for the /l/s that are in the
coda, but that there is no such approximation for the onset /l/s. The two tongue
shapes are shown in Figure 10.1. In SSBE, /l/s are velarised when syllabic or
when in the coda of a syllable (see Unit 8 for a reminder of these terms),
provided they are not immediately followed by a vowel. Another name for
velarised /l/ is dark /l/, and we can use the diacritic [ˠ] to the right of a symbol to
show velarisation in general, or the special symbol [ɫ] to indicate a velarised /l/.
In this book, we will not use the use the [ɫ] symbol, to avoid confusion with the
symbol for a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ]. Instead, we will use the [ˠ]
diacritic, for consistency with other allophonic variations, such as palatalisation
[ʲ] and labialisation [ʷ]. Note that non-velarised /l/s are called clear /l/s, and no
diacritic is added to the symbol we use for the phoneme: [l] signiﬁes a clear /l/.
Take care to remember that [l] is an allophone of /l/, just as [lˠ] is, even though it
does not have any diacritics added in an allophonic transcription.
Consonants before the [lˠ] can also be velarised – for example, in ‘hustle’,
both the /s/ and the /l/ are velarised: [hʌsˠlˠ]. When /l/ occurs between two
vowels, it tends to be clear.
Figure 10.1 Mid-sagittal sections showing the production of non-velarised (left) and
velarised (right) /l/
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
138
Exercise 10.14 We have seen that labialisation and palatalisation are the result of coarticula-
tion. Labialisation occurs due to an upcoming sound with lip-rounding, and
palatalisation occurs due to an upcoming palatal sound.
Let us think again about ‘little’ and ‘lulled’, and about the rule mentioned
above for velarisation.
Do you think velarisation comes about because of a velar sound in the
environment?
Comment Velarisation is rather different to the other secondary place allophones we have
looked at. Velarisation is not the result of coarticulation due to a velar segment
in the environment. Instead, syllable position determines whether /l/ is velarised
or not, as we have seen above. We refer to this as a rule-based or extrinsic
allophone, because it cannot be predicted from the surrounding sounds.
Extrinsic allophones tend to be language-speciﬁc rather than universal. So,
whereas labialisation will happen in many languages before rounded vowels, for
example, not all languages will velarise /l/ syllable ﬁnally.
10.4.3.1 Accent-speciﬁc allophones of /l/
Different regional accents of English also have different allophones of /l/.
Scottish English speakers tend to use velarised /l/ in all positions, including
onsets, while Welsh and Irish English speakers tend to have clear /l/ in all
positions, including codas. Many accents, such as Cockney, use a vocalised /l/
wherever SSBE uses a dark /l/. When a consonant is vocalised, it becomes more
like a vowel. For vocalised /l/, the velar approximation of dark /l/ remains, but
the tongue tip contact is removed, resulting in a sound like a high back vowel,
which can be symbolised as [o] or [ʊ]. These variants would be recorded in an
allophonic transcription but in a broad transcription, all variants will simply be
transcribed as /l/.
10.4.4 Glottal reinforcement
In Unit 3, we saw that speakers often use a glottal plosive [ʔ] as a version (we
now know the term ‘allophone’) of /t/ in English, a situation we referred to as
‘glottalling’ or ‘glottal replacement’. However, it is also possible to produce a
glottal plosive at the same time as, or slightly before, the oral closure for the
voiceless plosives /p t k/, when they occur at the end of an utterance. This is
known as glottal reinforcement, or glottalisation, and can be shown by adding
the [ʔ] symbol to our allophonic transcriptions before the sound that is glottally
reinforced.
Exercise 10.15 Produce the following words and try to work out if you are producing a glottal
plosive at the same time as (or slightly before) the ﬁnal voiceless consonant.
rat rack rap
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
139
Comment It can be quite difﬁcult to work out whether or not you are glottally reinforcing
voiceless plosives, so it might be worth practising several times and asking a
teacher to check for you. In addition, you may have used glottal replacement in
‘rat’ in this exercise. People also vary in whether or not they use glottal
reinforcement, and this can depend on their accent, or just the situation in
which they are speaking. As glottalisation varies substantially between and
within speakers, we will not include it in allophonic transcriptions in the
following units.
10.5 Summary
In this unit, we have explored allophones of place of articulation. We have
looked at variations in the primary articulation, such as advancement and
retraction, and variations when a secondary articulation is added, such as
labialisation and velarisation.
10.6 Looking forward
In the next unit we will explore allophonic variations of manner.
10.7 Review questions
See if you can answer the following questions, based on the key learning
areas for this unit.

What is the difference between primary and secondary allophonic
variations of place?

Name, and give examples of, all the types of primary and secondary
place variations discussed in this unit.

What is an extrinsic allophone?
10.8 Review exercises
If you would like further practice, try the following.
1 Match each diacritic to the relevant allophonic process.
retraction [ʷ]
advancement [ˠ]
dental/labiodental realisations [ ̱ ]
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
140
labialisation [ʲ]
palatalisation [˖]
velarisation [ ̪]
2 Give full allophonic transcriptions of the following, including diacritics
from this unit and Unit 9.
corners
huge
twitch
eleventh
bold
trance
3 Find the errors in the following three allophonic transcriptions, and
explain why each transcription is wrong.
million [mɪlˠɪən]
cupid [kʲjupɪd̊ ]
green [ɡ
̱
ɹin]
UNIT 10 Allophonic variations of place
141
UNIT 11 ALLOPHONIC VARIATIONS OF MANNER
11.1 Key learning areas
In this unit we will:
* explore how allophones of a phoneme can vary in manner of articulation
* discover how these allophones can relate to the approach and release
phases of plosives
* investigate nasalisation.
11.2 Introduction
So far, we have looked at how a phoneme’s allophones can vary in terms of
voicing and place of articulation. Here, we will think about how they can vary in
manner. We will start by thinking about nasalisation, a topic that we will
continue in the next unit, about vowel allophones.
11.3 Nasalisation
Exercise 11.1 Just using your knowledge of the English language, and the phonetics termi-
nology you have learnt so far, what do you think the following terms might
mean?
nasal
nasalise
nasalisation
Comment You know from previous units that nasals are consonants with a complete
blockage to airﬂow in the oral cavity, but with a lowered velum so that air
escapes through the nose. The nasals in English are /m n ˛/. The sufﬁx ‘-ise’
(or ‘-ize’) means something like ‘cause to be’, and is used to turn a noun into a
verb. In this book, for example, we use words like ‘symbolise’, and words like
‘visualise’ are common in everyday language. Therefore, ‘nasalise’ means
something like ‘to cause something to be nasal’. The sufﬁx ‘-tion’ is also
common in English and is used to turn a verb into a noun. More speciﬁcally, it is
added to a verb to mean an instance of that verb. So, for example, we have the
142
verb ‘to demonstrate’, and a ‘demonstration’ is an instance of people demon-
strating. ‘Nasalisation’, then, is an instance of something being nasalised.
As we have seen in the previous units, speech is not a string of separate
segments, even though this is a convenient way to think about it. Speech sounds
overlap, and coarticulation means that sounds affect one another. One way in
which manner of articulation is affected is that sounds can be nasalised in
certain environments. For these nasalised sounds, the velum is lowered so that
air can ﬂow through the nasal cavity. Unlike nasal consonants, however, there is
no blockage to airﬂow in the oral cavity. Therefore, nasalisation means that
there is simultaneous oral and nasal airﬂow.
Exercise 11.2 Thinking back to what you know about manner of articulation, and rereading
the comment on Exercise 11.1, what manners of sounds do you think can be
nasalised, and which cannot?
Tip Think back to what we discovered about obstruent and sonorant sounds in
Unit 4.
Comment As you will remember from Unit 4, obstruent sounds (such as plosives, frica-
tives and affricates) must have velic closure, as they need pressure to build in the
oral cavity. If the velum is lowered, air can escape through the nasal cavity and
pressure cannot build. Therefore, obstruents cannot be nasalised. Sonorants
(vowels, nasals and approximants, including lateral approximants) do not need
pressure to build, which means that they do not need velic closure, and, in fact,
nasals must have velic opening. For approximants, however, velic closure is
optional, and when they are produced without velic closure, they are nasalised.
What we will see shortly is that whether the velum is open or closed during
approximant sounds is largely due to coarticulation.
Mid-sagittal sections for a non-nasalised (left) and nasalised (right)
approximant /j/ are shown in Figure 11.1. Note that the position of the velum is
different in the two pictures.
Figure 11.1 Mid-sagittal sections for a non-nasalised (left) and nasalised (right) palatal
approximant /j/
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
143
Exercise 11.3 The diacritic for nasalisation is [ ˜ ] above the symbol for the sound that is
nasalised. Look at the following data. Which sounds are nasalised, and in which
environments?
[j
̃
æ̃m] [pɑsnɪ ̃ p] [gɹ ̃ ĩn bĩn] [l
̃
ɛ
̃
ntɪl] [w
̃
ɪ ̃ ntə mɛ
̃
l
̃
ə
̃
n] [mũli]
Comment First of all, you should observe that only vowels and approximants are nasalised.
As we said before, this is because velic closure is optional for these sounds.
Importantly, these sounds are only nasalised in the vicinity of a nasal consonant
in English. Nasalisation works in both directions – that is, it is both anticipatory
and perseverative. However, the anticipatory effect is stronger, and we will
reﬂect this by assuming that it affects up to two segments, whereas only one
segment can be nasalised following a nasal (compare the two segments after the
/m/ in ‘mooli’ with the two segments before the /n/ in ‘green’).
Exercise 11.4 Why do you think sounds are nasalised in the environment of a nasal
consonant?
Comment The answer, of course, involves coarticulation. For a nasal consonant, the velum
has to be lowered. Therefore, the vocal tract can begin to prepare for a nasal
consonant by lowering the velum before the other articulators are in position
for that nasal. For example, in ‘yam’, which we worked on in Exercise 11.3, the
velum begins to lower before the bilabial closure for /m/. This results in oral and
nasal airﬂow for the approximant and vowel, so they are nasalised. Likewise, in
‘parsnip’, the velum does not immediately return to a closed position after the
/n/, so there is oral and nasal airﬂow in the following vowel. If an obstruent is
next to the nasal, however, the velum must be raised throughout that obstruent,
so there is no coarticulatory effect.
Note that in other languages, such as French, sounds can be nasalised
(have simultaneous oral and nasal airﬂow) without being in the vicinity of a
nasal consonant. Nasalisation can also make a contrast in meaning in other
languages. In French, for example, /sɛ/ means ‘knows’, while /sɛ
̃
/ means
‘saint’. So, nasalisation need not be a result of coarticulation, even though it is
in English.
Nasalisation can be shown in a parametric diagram, in a similar way to
how we showed allophonic variations of voicing in Unit 9. Figure 11.2 shows a
parametric diagram of velum height in the word ‘parsnip’. Again, the vertical
lines represent beginnings and ends of the individual segments within the
word. The height of the horizontal line in the diagram represents the position
of the velum at each point in the word, with a low line representing a lowered
velum and a high line representing a closed velum (velic closure). Notice that
the velum moves during the nasalised /ɪ/, as shown by the sloping line. We will
look at parametric diagrams, and how to draw them, in much more detail in
Unit 13.
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
144
11.4 Allophonic variations of manner relating to plosives
We now turn to some allophonic variations relating to plosives, so we need to
remind ourselves brieﬂy of the articulation of plosives.
Exercise 11.5 Remind yourself about the three stages of plosive production and draw a
diagram to represent these phases. Try to do this without looking back in the
book, but have a look back at Unit 4 if you get stuck.
Comment In Unit 4, we talked about how plosives are produced and we distinguished
three phases. Firstly, the active articulator approaches the passive
articulator, in a phase called the approach phase. The middle phase is the
hold phase, where two articulators are in contact, and air builds up behind
this closure. After the hold phase is the release phase, where the active
articulator moves away from the passive articulator and air escapes from the
vocal tract. Figure 11.3 represents the three phases, with the top line
showing the passive articulator, and the bottom line showing the active
articulator.
We can be more detailed, however, about the approach and release phases of
plosives, and refer to them as wide oral approach and release, when they occur
as shown in Figure 11.3. We use the term ‘wide’ because the active articulator
moves far away from the passive articulator, and ‘oral’ because the air is
released through the oral cavity. We will see shortly that other types of approach
and release are possible.
p n p s A [ ]
Figure 11.2 Parametric diagram of velum action in ‘parsnip’
Figure 11.3 Manner diagram for a plosive
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
145
11.4.1 Nasal approach and release
Exercise 11.6 a) Produce the word ‘wed’. Concentrate on the /d/ sound and the movements
your articulators make to produce it. Can you feel the approach, hold and
release phases?
b) Now produce the word ‘when’. Concentrate on the /n/. Again, what
movements of the articulators can you feel?
c) Now think about the word ‘wend’. Logically, what might you expect to feel
for the /n/ and the /d/ in this word, based on what you discovered for /n/
and /d/ above?
d) Try producing the word ‘wend’. What do you feel? Speciﬁcally, do you feel
two approach, hold and release phases?
Comment a) For /d/ in ‘wed’, you probably felt your tongue approaching your alveolar
ridge, making a ﬁrm closure in the hold phase, and then moving away
quickly to a position of wide approximation, before the articulators return
to their resting positions.
b) For /n/ in ‘when’, the articulators move in a very similar way, with the
tongue approaching the alveolar ridge and making contact with it for a
short time before moving away again. The major difference between /n/
and /d/ is that the velum is lowered for /n/, so air does build up behind the
closure.
c) Given that /n/ and /d/ both have approach, hold and release phases, you
might have expected ‘wend’ to contain two approach, hold and release
phases.
d) Instead, however, you would only have felt your tongue approach and leave
the alveolar ridge once.
The reason that you only feel one approach and release is that the /d/ is
nasally rather than orally approached. To produce the /n/, the tongue
approaches the alveolar ridge and makes ﬁrm contact with it. Meanwhile, the
velum is lowered, so that air escapes through the nose. To move from an /n/ to a
/d/, however, the tongue does not need to approach the alveolar ridge, as it is
already in place. In fact, all that needs to happen is for the velum to raise, closing
off the nasal cavity, so that air can build up behind the alveolar closure.
Therefore, the /d/ is not approached orally by raising the tongue tip, but nasally
by closing off the nasal cavity: this is called nasal approach. Try Exercise 11.6
again, to see if you can feel the stages just described in ‘wend’.
Exercise 11.7 In Exercise 11.6, we looked at nasal approach. What do you think nasal release
might be? Can you think of an example word where it might occur?
Comment Nasal release means that a plosive consonant is not released orally by moving
the active articulator away from the passive articulator. Instead, the velum is
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
146
lowered, so that air escapes through the nose, and the sound becomes a nasal.
An example might be a word like ‘hidden’, if /n/ is syllabic and there is no schwa
between the /d/ and /n/ (as, obviously, the plosive and nasal must be adjacent for
nasal approach or release to occur).
Exercise 11.8 The diacritic for nasal approach and release is [
n
]. This occurs as a superscript to
the left of the plosive for nasal approach, and to the right for nasal release.
Look at the data below. You will notice that not all nasal-plosive combina-
tions result in nasal approach or release of the plosive. Can you spot the
condition for the occurrence of nasal approach or release? (Other diacritics are
omitted for clarity.)
[hæn
n
d] [hæ˛dɒg] [lɪm
n
bəʊ] [kɪd
n
nĩ] [kæmdən]
Comment You will see that nasal approach and nasal release only occur when the nasal
and plosive have the same place of articulation. This makes sense, since, if the
place of articulation of the two is different, the speaker must do more than
simply change the position of the velum, and therefore the plosive will be
approached or released orally. Another word for the same place of articulation
is homorganic.
The examples in Exercise 11.8 all use voiced plosives, but nasal approach
and release also apply to voiceless plosives, as long as they are adjacent to a
homorganic nasal – for example, in ‘lint’, or ‘kitten’, produced with a
syllabic /n/. Of course, to change from /t/ to /n/, or vice versa, the state of the
glottis also needs to alter, but the approach and release is the same as that
described for the voiced plosives.
Note that in a parametric diagram, nasal approach and release are not
shown as nasalisation of the plosive. The velum must be lowered for the nasal
and closed for the plosive, so must move rapidly between them. It cannot move
during the production of the plosive in normal speech, as the plosive requires a
closed velum throughout so that pressure can build, and therefore moves
towards the end of the nasal, as shown in Figure 11.4 for nasal approach.
h n
n
d
°
[ ]
Figure 11.4 Parametric diagram for the position of the velum in ‘hand’
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
147
11.4.2 Lateral approach and release
Exercise 11.9 Given what you know about nasal approach and release, what do you think is
meant by lateral approach and release, and in which environments might these
occur?
Comment The label ‘lateral approach and release’ gives you much of the information you
need to work out what types of allophonic variation are described. The
‘approach and release’ part of the label tells you that we are again thinking
about allophonic variation of plosives. The ‘lateral’ part of the label suggests
that the plosive is approached or released in a lateral manner – that is, by
moving the sides of the tongue. You might have surmised, therefore, that
plosives will be laterally approached or released when they are adjacent to a
lateral consonant, which in English can only be /l/. Furthermore, you may
have thought back to our discussion earlier in this chapter, and imagined
that the plosive and /l/ will have to be homorganic. Consequently, as /l/ is
alveolar, only the alveolar plosives /t/ and /d/ can be laterally approached or
released.
Exercise 11.10 a) As in Exercise 11.6, produce the word ‘wed’. Concentrate on the /d/ sound
and the movements your articulators make to produce it. Can you feel the
approach, hold and release phases?
b) Now produce the word ‘well’. Concentrate on the /l/. Again, what articu-
latory movements can you feel?
c) Now think about the word ‘weld’. What do you feel? Speciﬁcally, when do
you feel the tongue tip approach the alveolar ridge?
Comment a) When the /d/ is at the end of ‘wed’, you can feel the tongue tip approaching
the alveolar ridge, making ﬁrm contact and then moving away again.
b) In ‘well’, we ﬁnd a similar sort of articulation for /l/, in that the tongue tip
rises and forms a ﬁrm contact with the alveolar ridge. Here, however, the
sides of the tongue remain lowered and in wide approximation with the
alveolar ridge, so that air ﬂows over the sides of the tongue.
c) In ‘weld’, the tongue tip contacts the alveolar ridge for /l/ and remains there
for /d/. The sides of the tongue change position, however. After being
lowered for /l/, they rise for /d/ and make ﬁrm contact with the roof of
the mouth. Therefore, the only change in the articulators between /l/
and /d/ is in the position of the sides of the tongue. As the tongue tip
has not risen in the approach to /d/, we say that /d/ is laterally
approached.
Lateral release is much as you would expect, given what you know already.
Here, a /t/ or /d/ is followed immediately by an /l/, and is released by lowering
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
148
the sides of the tongue to a position of wide approximation, so that air can ﬂow
over the sides of the tongue. For example, in ‘little’ or ‘huddle’, the alveolar
plosives are laterally released (so long as the /l/ is syllabic and no schwa occurs
before it), as is the /d/ in ‘medley’.
Lateral approach and release are symbolised in transcription by the super-
script diacritic [
l
], which occurs to the left of the plosive for lateral approach and
to the right of it for lateral release.
Exercise 11.11 Give allophonic transcriptions of the following. Concentrate on manner allo-
phones, but also try to include allophonic details of voice and place.
mitten Santa felt metal candle molten
Comment The allophonic transcriptions are [mɪ ̃ t
n
n], [sæ̃n
n
tə], [fɛlˠ
l
t], [mɛ
̃
t
l
lˠ],
[k̟
h
æ̃n
n
d
l
lˠ] and [mɒ
̃
lˠ
l
t
n
n]. You will notice that plosives can be both nasally
approached and laterally released, as in ‘candle’, or laterally approached and
nasally released, as in ‘molten’. This is an exception to our rule of thumb from
Unit 10, where we said that, in general, only one variation of manner would
occur at any one time. This exception is because one variation affects the
approach phase, and one the release phase of a plosive, and therefore the
articulations are not incompatible. Of course, plosives cannot be laterally
approached and nasally approached at the same time (or laterally released and
nasally released), because they cannot be preceded (or followed) by a lateral and
a nasal simultaneously.
Note, also, that the plosives will only be nasally or laterally released if they
are directly followed by a nasal or a lateral, which is often the case when the nasal
or lateral is syllabic, but not if a schwa intervenes. This depends very much on
an individual’s pronunciation, as we have seen. If a person produces ‘mitten’,
‘metal’ and ‘candle’ with a schwa following the plosive, then the transcriptions
will be [mɪ ̃ tə
̃
n], [mɛ
̃
təlˠ] and [k̟
h
æ̃n
n
dəlˠ].
We will now turn our attention to several more ways in which plosives may
be released.
11.4.3 Narrow release
Exercise 11.12 Say the following pairs of sentences. Focus on the release of the /t/ in pair (a)
and the release of the /d/ in pair (b). Do you notice a difference between the
members of each pair?
a) Say cat again Say cats again
b) Say card again Say cards again
Comment In ‘cat’ and ‘card’, the plosives have a wide oral release, as we discussed in our
description of ‘standard’ plosives in Unit 4, and at the start of this unit. In ‘cats’
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
149
and ‘cards’, however, the release phases of the plosives are much narrower.
Rather than moving far away from the alveolar ridge, as in the ﬁrst example, the
tongue moves into narrow approximation in preparation for the following
alveolar fricatives. Thus, we say the plosives are narrowly released.
Exercise 11.13 The diacritics for narrow release are shown in the allophonic transcriptions
below.
[kæt
s
s] [kɑd
z
z]
a) Why do you think the diacritic is different in the different words?
b) What do you think is the environment for narrow release of plosives?
Comment a) The diacritic always takes the form of the following fricative.
b) Plosives are narrowly released when they are followed by a fricative at
the same place of articulation – that is, one that is homorganic with the
plosive.
Exercise 11.14 Will the /t/ in ‘width’ be narrowly released? Give an allophonic transcription of
this word. (Depending on your pronunciation, the plosive in ‘width’ might be
/d/, but the exercise will still work.)
Comment At ﬁrst glance, it might appear that /t/ (or /d/) will have wide oral release,
because it is alveolar and /θ/ is dental. However, as you may remember from
Unit 10, /t/ is actually produced with a dental place of articulation when it is
before a dental fricative due to coarticulation, and, consequently, both plosive
and fricative are dental. As we have a homorganic plosive and fricative, there-
fore, the plosive will be narrowly released and the allophonic transcription will
be [wɪt̪
θ
θ].
11.4.4 Ejective release
As we have already seen in Unit 7, in English, voiceless plosives can sometimes
be produced as voiceless ejective plosives before a pause.
Exercise 11.15 Remind yourself of how an ejective sounds and the diacritic we use to symbolise
ejectives. Try to produce ejective versions of /p t k/.
Comment We looked at ejectives in Unit 7, and demonstrated their use in English with the
word ‘quick’ spoken with some urgency. They have a distinctive sharp sound at
the release, while the approach and hold phases are much the same as for
pulmonic plosives. You will remember that this distinct sound comes from the
larynx being raised so that pressure increases behind the oral closure. In
English, any voiceless plosive before a pause can be produced as an ejective, and
the diacritic we use to symbolise ejective release is [’], to the right of the
appropriate plosive symbol.
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
150
You may have noted by now that diacritics relating to the release phase
occur to the right of a plosive symbol, and those relating to approach appear to
the left. As we transcribe from left to right, you can remember this by recalling
the logical order of the approach and release phases (approach comes ﬁrst, so we
symbolise it ﬁrst – that is, on the left of the symbol).
11.4.5 No audible release
It is also possible that the release of a plosive cannot be heard, and this is known
as inaudible release or no audible release. Note that this does not mean that the
plosive is not released (although we will see some examples of that later), just
that the release cannot be heard.
Exercise 11.16 The diacritic for an inaudibly released plosive is [ ̚ ] to the right of the plosive
symbol. Plosives are inaudibly released in three environments, shown in (a) to
(c) below. Can you spot what the three environments are? (Each word is
assumed to be in isolation rather than part of a phrase.)
a) [ʌp̚ɡɹeɪd
̚
] [tʃɪk̚pi] [wæɡ̚teɪlz]
b) [bɹɛk̚fəst ̚] [kʊk̚sən] [əb̚zɒlv]
c) [ɔk̚] [blit ̚] [sid
̚ ]
Comment a) The inaudibly released plosives are those that occur before a plosive at a
different place of articulation.
b) The inaudibly released plosives occur immediately before fricatives with a
different place of articulation.
c) They occur at the end of words, with examples of this type also seen in
(a) and (b). Note that inaudible release at the end of words happens
only when the plosives occur before a pause, and not if another word
follows.
In Exercise 11.16, in (a) and (b), the plosive release is inaudible because it is
covered or masked by something else. When a plosive or fricative follows at a
different place of articulation (which we call heterorganic), the hold phase of
the second plosive or the friction of the fricative overlaps with the release of the
ﬁrst plosive, so that the release cannot be heard, as shown in Figures 11.5
and 11.6.
Immediately before a pause, both voiced and voiceless plosives can be
released inaudibly. Here, the closure is released rather slowly and gently, so the
air escapes silently, rather than with the wide oral release and audible plosion
found in other positions.
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
151
Exercise 11.17 We have just said that plosives may be inaudibly released before a pause. Does
this contradict anything else we have said in this unit, and, if so, is this
contradiction a problem?
Comment In the sections above, we have given two possible allophonic variations for
voiceless plosives before a pause. In the ﬁrst instance, we have said that voiceless
plosives can be ejective before a pause (section 11.4.4), and, in the second
instance, that all plosives, including voiceless ones, can be inaudibly released
before a pause (section 11.4.5). This would seem to be a problem for comple-
mentary distribution, which, as we learnt earlier, means that only one allophone
of a phoneme can occur in any particular environment. However, as we shall
now see, there are some cases in which it is possible for alternative allophones of
a phoneme to occur in the same environment.
Backfire
[k ]
[f ]
Figure 11.6 Inaudible release of /k/ due to overlap of friction in /f/
Folktales
[k ]
[t]
Figure 11.5 Inaudible release of /k/ due to overlap with hold phase of /t/
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
152
11.5 Free allophonic variation and complementary distribution
In Unit 9, we ﬁrst introduced the idea that there are two levels at which we can
describe sounds. The broad level is that at which only meaningful units of
sounds (i.e. phonemes) are recognised. However, phonemes actually occur in a
number of different forms, depending on their environment. These different
forms are called allophones, which are largely governed by coarticulation, and
form the allophonic level. Because they are so dependent on their environment,
usually only one allophone of a particular phoneme can occur in any particular
environment, and this allophone can differ in many ways fromother allophones
of the same phoneme (remember the allophone of /k/ that we looked at in the
word ‘course’ in Exercise 10.9). We say that allophones of a phoneme are in
complementary distribution – that is, where one occurs, another cannot (the
allophone of /k/ in ‘course’ [ḵ
wh
], for example, is the only one that can occur in
this environment).
What we have seen just now, however, is that, in some rare environments,
different allophones of the same phoneme are possible. So, before a pause, a /p/,
for example, might be pronounced as either [p̚ ] or [p’]. This situation, where
alternative allophones of a phoneme are possible, is called free allophonic
variation (FAV).
Exercise 11.18 From what you know so far, and from what we have said above, can you think
what might determine whether [p̚] or [p’] is used before a pause?
Comment In these very restricted circumstances, the speaker has some degree of choice
over which allophone to use. In Exercise 7.8, where we talked about ejectives, we
tried to produce them by saying the word ‘quick’ loudly and forcefully (page
89). This tends to be one type of situation in which ejective allophones occur,
whereas the inaudibly released ones might be said when the speaker does not
feel a particular desire to be overly clear or directive. In fact, before a pause,
voiceless plosives with wide oral release can also occur, so the speaker actually
has a choice of three allophones in this situation. Of course, the choice will not
be a conscious one, and speakers do not wake up in the morning and think,
‘Today, I am going to use only ejective plosives before pauses’. However, some
speakers may have an unconscious preference for one allophone or another, and
the unconscious choice at any one time might be determined by speaking style,
background noise, or the proximity or identity of the listener. For example, I
tend to use many more plosives with wide oral release and ejective release when
I am talking to my grandmother, who is hard of hearing.
It may seem, initially, that these situations of free allophonic variation
invalidate the notion of complementary distribution, which we said earlier
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
153
demonstrates that particular allophones ‘belong’ to the same phoneme.
However, it is important to remember that there are only a small number of
allophones that can be in free variation with each other. So, as we have just seen,
there are three allophones of voiceless plosives that can occur before a pause, but
also a vast number of others that cannot occur in this environment. For
example, a nasally released plosive or a narrowly released plosive cannot occur,
as they are not in the right environment (before a homorganic nasal or fricative,
respectively). Consequently, the three allophones that can occur are still in
complementary distribution with all the other allophones of that phoneme,
which cannot occur in this environment. Figure 11.7 illustrates this point.
The three allophones of /t/, on the left, are in free allophonic variation before
a pause, as the speaker has a choice of which to use. However, these three are in
complementary distribution with all the other allophones of /t/ which cannot
occur here, as shown on the right.
11.5.1 Unreleased plosives
Exercise 11.19 Produce the words ‘bad’ and ‘day’ separately, saying them quite carefully.
Concentrate on the /d/s and see if you can feel the approach, hold and release
phases for each. Now put the words together so that you produce the phrase
‘bad day’, and try to produce it fairly quickly and naturally. Again, concentrate
on the /d/s. What do you notice? Can you still feel the approach, hold and
release phases of each one?
Comment When you say the words separately, both /d/s have an approach, hold and
release phase, although the release phase for the /d/ in ‘bad’ may be inaudible
when the word is produced in isolation, as we have seen above, because it
occurs before a pause. When the two /d/s are adjacent in the phrase ‘bad day’,
however, it is possible that they merge together, with a single approach and
release, and one long hold phase. We say that the ﬁrst /d/ is unreleased, and
transcribe it as [d̊]. Note that the diacritic is a circle and looks rather similar
to the devoicing diacritic. However, it is to the right of the plosive, rather than
above or below it, as for other diacritics specifying different types of release.
Figures 11.8 and 11.9 illustrate the differences in /d/ between separate
production of the words ‘bad’ and ‘day’, and a rapid production of the phrase
‘bad day’.
/t/ /t/
[t] [t
;
] [t
'
]
[t
n
] [t
h
] [t
=
] [
n
t] [
I
t] [t
I
] [t
w
] [t] [t
j
] etc
Figure 11.7 Free allophonic variation and complementary distribution for /t/
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
154
When this happens, gemination is said to have occurred. Notice that it is
not the case that one of the /d/s has been deleted (try saying the phrase with just
one /d/ and see how odd it sounds). Instead, they have merged, to have a longer
hold phase than a single /d/, and only a single approach and release phase. Note
that the ﬁrst /d/ is entirely unreleased, and that this is rather different to a
plosive with inaudible release, where the release does occur, but cannot be
heard.
In any sequence of homorganic plosives, the ﬁrst plosive can be unreleased.
This includes voiceless plosives (for example, a sequence of /k k/) and where the
two homorganic plosives differ in voicing (for example, a sequence of /k ɡ/).
However, once again, we have a case of free allophonic variation. When two
homorganic plosives occur, the ﬁrst might be unreleased, as in the example
above, or it can have wide oral release, in which case, gemination does not occur,
and each plosive has an approach, hold and release phase. Again, this depends
on the speaker’s, largely unconscious, choice.
Exercise 11.20 Try to produce ‘bad day’ in two ways: ﬁrstly, with an unreleased ﬁrst plosive;
and, secondly, with the plosive in ‘bad’ produced with wide oral release. Do they
both sound normal and natural?
Comment As the unreleased and wide orally released plosives are in free allophonic
variation in this position, they should both sound ﬁne. The released version may
sound a little more careful, but both are acceptable. However, when we visit
assimilation in Unit 17, we will come across a situation where the unreleased
version is the only option.
/d/s in ‘bad day’
[d°d]
Figure 11.9 Manner diagrams for /d/s in the phrase ‘bad day’
/d/ in ‘bad’ /d/ in ‘day’
[d] [d]
Figure 11.8 Manner diagrams for /d/s in ‘bad’ and ‘day’ when the words are spoken in isolation
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
155
11.6 Summary
Here we have looked at variations in manner of articulation. We have looked at
nasalisation of approximants, and several different variations in the approach
and release phases of plosives. We have seen how to symbolise these variations
in an allophonic transcription, and how to show the position of the velum using
parametric diagrams. We have now covered all the major allophonic variations
of consonants in English.
11.7 Looking forward
In our next unit we will look at allophonic variations of vowels.
11.8 Review questions
Have a look at these questions to see if you have understood the main points
to learn from this unit.

What is the difference between a nasal and a nasalised sound?

What is meant by free allophonic variation?

What are all the different ways in which plosives can be approached
and released?
11.9 Review exercises
1 Focus on the (emboldened) /d/s in the words and phrases below. For each
/d/, work out how it is released, and match this to the list of release types
in the middle column, and to the allophonic transcription of /d/ on the
right.
‘broaden’ (produced with syllabic /n/) narrow release [d̊]
‘yodel’ (produced with syllabic /l/) inaudible release [d
n
]
‘odds’ unreleased [d
z
]
‘dreadful’ lateral release [d ̚ ]
‘bread dough’ nasal release [d
l
]
2 Look at the following parametric diagram of velum height. Spot the errors
and redraw the diagram.
SECTION TWO Putting sounds together
156
3 Try to invent a sentence that has a lowered velum throughout. You will
need to include words that only contain nasals, vowels and approximants.
Some words to get you started are ‘men’, ‘milliner’ and ‘lemon’. This is
especially hard, as few function words (such as pronouns, articles and
conjunctions) ﬁt our criteria, and pluralising most nouns will not be
possible.
[ t n ]
n
t I
`
UNIT 11 Allophonic variations of manner
157